A rare blue and white, iron-red and polychrome enamelled 'Immortals' bowl, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's
with rounded sides rising to an everted rim, delicately painted in finely pencilled tones of iron-red with famille-verte highlights with a procession of fourteen Immortals and attendants, each of the Immortals with their associated attributes, all framed by underglaze-blue double lines, the interior with a single fruiting peach sprig in green and iron-red enamel within a double medallion, wood stand. Quantité: 2 - 18.8cm., 7 3/4 in.
Provenance: Antiquaire Tournet, Paris, circa 1946.
Collection of Comte de Marotte, Paris.
Thence by descent.
Exhibition: Iron in the Fire. The Chinese Potters’ Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1988, cat. no. 79.
Notes: A closely relate bowl from the Qing Court collection and still in Beijing, is illustrated in Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours. The complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 118.
Bowls painted with this subject matter are more commonly found decorated in iron-red and black enamels without the additional underglaze blue borders and occasionally without the famille-verte details as seen on the present lot. For examples of this type, see a Kangxi mark and period bowl from the Oppenheim collection illustrated by R.L. Hobson et al., Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, London, 1931, fig. 160; and a pair from the Treitel collection included in the exhibition Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, Berlin, 1929, cat. no. 911, and now in the Gemeente Museum, The Hague. See also an unmarked example in iron-red and black enamels, included in the exhibition The Barbara Hutton Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1956, cat. no. IX.
Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Londres, 13 mai 2015, 11:00 AM